Innovation Simulation: Breaking News
How to Play Guide
HBP Product No. 8678
This PowerPoint presentation was prepared by Harvard Business Publishing for the sole purpose of aiding classroom instructors in the use of Innovation Simulation: Breaking News (HBP No. 8675). HBP educational materials are
developed solely as the basis for class discussion. These materials are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management.
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Goal of the Simulation
• In this simulation, you are a product manager at a newspaper, The Citizen
Sun.
• You will be given a directive from your CEO that asks you to solve a problem
at the newspaper by presenting an idea that you sourced through
innovation initiatives.
• You will be given a set time and budget which you can use to source
potential ideas.
• Ultimately, you will submit one idea to your CEO.
Copyright © 2017 President and Fellows of Harvard College. 2
Overview
• First, you will be
brought to the
simulation overview
page, where you will
learn a bit about The
Citizen Sun.
• This page explains
your goal in the
simulation; to source
an idea to solve The
Citizen Sun’s issues.
Copyright © 2017 President and Fellows of Harvard College. 3
Tutorial
• Then, you will
carefully review the
how to play tutorial.
• You can always return
to the tutorial by
clicking on the “Help”
button in the top
right corner of the
simulation.
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Mandate
• You will then be
directed to the
Mandate page. This will
be a memo from your
CEO providing
background
information and laying
out the problem you
need to solve.
• Pay attention to how
your CEO presents the
issues.
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Background
• You may then want to
review the
Background
information tab.
• This contains
information about The
Citizen Sun news
organization and
market data about the
newspaper industry.
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Initiatives
• You will then begin exploring the initiatives.
• In the top right corner, you’ll notice your remaining time and budget. This will decrease as you
spend money and time on different initiatives.
• Each initiative has an associated budget and cost. To read more about an initiative, click on it
and the right panel will populate with information.
• Some initiatives will allow you to choose from different audiences and incentives.
• You can only run one initiative at a time, but you may run additional initiatives after your first, if
you have time and budget remaining.
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Ideas
• After running an initiative, you will be brought to the Ideas tab.
• At the top, you will see a summary of your choices and then a list of ideas generated.
• To read more about an idea, click on it and the right panel will populate with information.
• Some initiatives will produce ideas that come with a complete “idea profile.” (image on left)
• Other initiatives will produce ideas that require market testing (image on right). You can test
as many ideas as you would like, using one week’s time. Each idea you choose to test costs
$1,000. After testing an idea, you will receive the complete “idea profile.”
• From this page, you have two choices: You can choose a final idea to submit by clicking on the
idea, then clicking on “Submit Idea” or you can “Start Another Initiative.”
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Summary of How to Play
1. Introduction and Background
– Review the tutorial, mandate, and background information
2. Initiatives
– Review the different Initiatives, considering the unique characteristics of each one
(time, budget, audience, incentives, and approach). Then select an initiative to
generate ideas. You can run more than one initiative, time and budget permitting,
but only one initiative at a time.
3. Ideas
– Review the available ideas, testing them if necessary, and select one final idea to
submit to the CEO.
Copyright © 2017 President and Fellows of Harvard College. 9
